


Bridges

by purple01_prose



Series: bridges [1]
Category: Epic (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Female Protagonist, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Mythology - Freeform, POV Female Character, Retelling, Women Being Awesome, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple01_prose/pseuds/purple01_prose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her mom dies, MK heeds her dying wish and goes to visit her dad, thinking that she can last maybe two days with him. Instead, it's all of three hours, but on her way out the door, she gets caught up in something she never anticipated. //Canon AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of suppositions MK makes. Please know that not all of them are correct, but she's making those suppositions based on what she knows at the time.
> 
> This work is dedicated to queenmarykatherine over on tumblr, whose rp-ing has been instrumental to this fic and its process.

_“The death of a mother is the first sorrow wept without her.”_

Unknown

 

* * *

 

 

Faith Kennedy looks at her stepdaughter with exhaustion. MK’s barely left her mother’s side since Anna collapsed in the kitchen at 7: 13 PM, six weeks ago, and has only left to sleep, take senior exams, and shower.

 

It’s not healthy for a seventeen year old to act this way, but then again, losing your mother to lupus isn’t healthy either.

 

“MK, why don’t you go home, get some rest?” she asks in a whisper, sitting up in her chair.

 

MK doesn’t look at her. “I need to be here. She might wake up.”

 

Faith bites her tongue. Anna had entered into a coma yesterday, and the doctors were sure it was only a matter of time. Anna’s parents were dead, and MK was under the age of majority. Faith’s the medical proxy, and she has no issue signing a DNR. The amount of time Anna and Faith have discussed this kind of thing has been limited (far less than it should have been, in hindsight; Anna’s diagnosis was years ago); however, what _was_ said was that Anna has no desire to linger if the mind is dead.

 

“Sweetheart,” Faith says carefully, “you should go home. Get some energy back, maybe go out with some friends? The world isn’t limited to your mother’s hospital room, and I know she wouldn’t want you crouched over her like this. You need a release.”

 

MK shakes her head, but her eyes are glimmering, and Faith understands that MK is afraid Anna will die while MK isn’t there. MK would never forgive herself. Faith gets up to wrap an awkward arm around MK’s shoulders, and MK leans into her. “Go home,” Faith urges. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”

 

MK opens her mouth to protest, and then shuts it. She gets up, grabbing her bag and checking her boots’ laces. “The instant anything changes, okay?”

 

“Definitely,” Faith makes herself smile at her wife’s daughter. “Go get some rest, MK.”

 

MK goes, and when she manages to sleep, she does not dream.

 

Perhaps if she had, it might have spared her what was to come.

 

\--

 

MK stares forlornly at the crowd of mourners at her mother’s wake. Faith is in full-on hostess mode, deflecting her uncle’s hostility (he, apparently, had liked MK’s dad, and was _not_ happy that her mother’s next long-term relationship was with a woman), and while MK _should_ be mingling, greeting everyone (particularly her crotchety aunt), she’s too frozen.

 

Her mom did not die the night MK went home to sleep. Instead, she died in relative peace the next day, with MK holding onto one hand and Faith the other. It had been very simple, so simple MK hadn’t believed it at first. It was only the keening of the monitor that sealed it. Faith had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, and while MK had been pissed when she’d first found out, she can, in hindsight, agree it was for the best. She remembers her mom being _pissed_ during the whole Terri Schivao incident, and she doesn’t want that to happen to her mom.

 

She just...misses her.

 

Her Grandma Lyse stops by in her rickety wheelchair, and says, “Mary Katherine, my dear sweet child, I am so sorry.” MK feels her face contort, and a sob escapes before she can hold it in.

 

With Grandma Lyse, it’s okay. Her daughter was MK’s mother, and she gets it. “Come here, my dove.” MK allows herself to be folded into her grandmother’s embrace, and she smells her grandmother’s scent of rosewater as she weeps into her grandmother’s black-clad shoulder. “There, there,” Grandma Lyse soothes, “you will survive this.”

 

“How can I, grandma? She was my mom.”

 

Grandma Lyse smiles sadly. “It’s a one day at time life, Mary Katherine. Take it as such, and you can get through this.”

 

MK stands up and kisses her grandmother on the cheek.

 

“I will see you later,” Grandma Lyse tells her, eyeing Faith and MK’s uncle. “I need to go tend to something.”

 

MK nods, wiping her face with her fingers and takes a deep breath.

 

“Hey, MK,” Robert, one of the boys from her graduating class, slides in next to her, tucking her hand inside his. “I’m so sorry.”

 

She squeezes his hand once, before letting go. They could have been something, once upon a time, but her mother’s death has made her grow up. Robert’s a kind, sweet person, but he’s still a child.

 

Those who still have living mothers are children.

 

“Thanks Robert,” she says softly, turning her face away. She feels so on edge all the time, like the grief is always waiting to grab her by the throat until she chokes under the weight of it.

 

“What are you doing this summer? Can I help?”

 

She makes herself turn to face him. “I’m going to my dad’s. Mom asked me to try with him, and I’m going to give him that chance, since, you know, last request and everything.”

 

Robert’s heard her complaints about her dad from the infrequent phone calls she and her father have had. “And should it not work out?”

 

“I’m coming back to live with Faith until I go to Colombia in the fall,” MK tears her gaze away to where Faith is listening intently to the Episcopalian minister and her mom’s best friend, Linda. “I could push it off for a year, but Mom wanted me to go to Colombia. She loved it, so if she did, I probably will to.”

 

“If you need anything,” Robert lets his voice trail off suggestively, his blue eyes bright with something that looks like hope.

 

“I’ll be sure to let you know,” she tells him with a tight smile. Some people find affirmation of life in sex after funerals. She’s just not one of them.

 

Robert drifts off, and MK fists her hands in her jacket pockets. Where’s her dad? He should be here. She sent him the notice. He didn’t send anything back.

 

 _Probably his work again. You know how that goes_.

 

Slowly, the people filter out while she watches them. No tears this time, but Faith ushers the last people out so that MK can have her private time with the casket.

 

It’s dark wood, and MK is struck by the absurdity of having her mother, one of the lightest, happiest people she knew, encased in darkness. She kneels, ignoring the dirt stains on her black skirt, and says quietly, “I’m going to try, because you asked me to. But he hasn’t been much of a dad, you know he hasn’t, and I’m giving him this one chance, and if he messes it up, I’m done. No more Christmas cards or anything. It’s not like he’d notice, anyway.”

 

She can almost imagine her mother frowning, and she looks down, rubbing the rich soil between her fingertips. “I miss you,” she blurts. “I miss watching ridiculous rom-coms with you while Faith made faces at us in the kitchen. I miss wrapping gifts at the last minute on the kitchen table on Christmas Eve. I miss snuggling with you on the couch. I just want you back, Mom.” _Please_ , she begs the universe. _Please_.

 

The universe remains silent.

 

MK forces herself to stand, and she gets up and walks away. Faith’s waiting for her at the starting line of headstones, and when she gets there, Faith loops an arm in hers and that’s how they walk back to Faith’s Prius, completely silent but united in their grief.

 

\--

 

The hour-long train ride feels simultaneously too long and too short. Faith had been trying to reach her dad on the phone, and when Bomba hadn’t picked up after the fifth try, Faith pressed enough money for a taxi from Albany to Bomba’s house.

 

Larry the cab driver is very chatty, and she’s grateful for the normality, because she knows her father is _not_ normal, and she’s not looking forward to it.

 

Maybe she can bridge their conversation with her plans to study environmental biology at Colombia (she’s actually a dance major, but she looked through the coursework already and some of it looks interesting. She blames the zoology class she took this past year). Her dad got his doctorate in biology before he ruined his career, and though her mom worked at a hedge fund, she was happy to know MK was considering going into the sciences (they’ve had _lots_ of conversations about the likelihood of her dance career after she fell out of a tree at fourteen).

 

Maybe. MK doesn’t have any hope, though. Her dad’s not exactly renowned for his communication skills, and since he didn’t even bother to send a response to the notice for the _funeral_ , she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to open up to him.

 

“Whoa! Bet you don’t get those kinds of bugs in the city,” the cab driver says smugly.

 

“Yeah, I miss it already,” MK says honestly.

 

“Hey, she talks!”

 

“Of course I talk,” she reads the name on his dashboard, “ _Larry._ What do you say to someone who’s a total stranger?”

 

“Hey, you and I go back twenty minutes,” Larry teases, and she feels a smile coming on, but she squashes it.

 

“Not you, Larry. The person I’m visiting.”

 

“Hey, wait a second—I’m taking you to someone you _don’t know_?”

 

“Oh, I knew him, a long time ago. Maybe we can do that again.” She looks out the window, sighing. This drive has felt too long, and the road’s bumpy. She wonders what it’s like when it rains. She sees the house and sits up, pulling her bag to her side. “Thanks Larry,” she says honestly, sitting up. “This is my stop.”

 

Larry turns to look at her, disbelief in his eyes. “ _This_ is your stop? That’s not a house, that’s-that’s termites holding hands.”

 

“It’s fine,” MK replies, hoping that makes it true.

 

“Look, keep my number, okay kid?” he flips her a business card for _Copperbottom Taxi_ with his name and number underneath it. “Just in case you need a quick getaway.”

 

“Thanks,” she smiles, tucking it into her pocket. She may just need it.

 

The door creaks when she opens it, and she suddenly has the urge to turn tail and flee.

 

She has vague memories of her dad when she was little, where he would tell her stories about the warriors of the forest. The one moment she clearly remembers is her father was wrapping up a story about a general fighting an assassin seeking to kill his queen, and she’d looked up to see her mom leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and rolling her eyes.

 

Her dad hadn’t been aware. She never brought it up, not even with her mom, because that moment shaped her worldview forever about her dad.

 

The divorce had been swift, and her dad hadn’t fought for at least partial custody. She’d been little, and it wasn’t until she was ten or so that her mom had sat her down to explain the divorce, but she knew something was going to change for her parents after that moment.

 

She and her dad had exchanged Christmas cards (or rather, she had, and she got her Christmas cards from him in March), until she’d reached thirteen or so and the cards stopped coming.

 

That was right around when her mom had married Faith.

 

Now that she’s older, she wonders if the two are connected.

 

Either way, whenever she did call her dad (and she was always the one to call, not him), the calls were sporadic, and usually lasted between five-ten minutes. Bomba was never interested in the boys she was dating, or what she was studying. He just wanted to hear that she was fine.

 

When she broke her leg falling out of a tree at fourteen, she didn’t bother telling him. He wouldn’t have come to visit, so why should she tell him?

 

Her mom hadn’t been happy about it (she had wanted them to have a better relationship, even if she had broken her own marriage), but she’d agreed to follow MK’s wishes.

 

Now she stands in the foyer of her father’s house, clutching the handle of her rolling bag, wanting nothing more than to run out the door after Larry.

 

Courage, she reminds herself, and takes that next step inside. “Dad?” she calls. “Dad?”

 

Her father barrels past her, clutching something in his fingers and muttering to himself. He consults a large book in what would be a sitting room in a _normal_ house (instead, it looks like a library mutated), and then paces back into what should be the dining room, examining whatever it is under a huge magnifying glass.

 

MK leans on the handle of her bag and says, “Dad?”

 

Her father _jumps_ , and if she was a more sadistic person, she would enjoy the sheer panic that crosses his face for a second. “Mary Katherine! You’re here!” He looks around anxiously, almost like he’s waiting for Ashton Kutcher to show up and say “Punk’d!” When he spots no obvious camera crew, he carefully puts down whatever it is and wraps his arms around her. “Welcome home.”

 

MK bites back the instinctual response, and forces herself to smile instead. He laughs nervously, tucking his hair behind his ear. “I didn’t realize today was...today.”

 

“It usually is,” MK says carefully. They pause awkwardly, and MK clears her throat.

 

“You look just like your mother,” her dad says wistfully. “I mean, did. Or, do, or—do you want to talk about it?”

 

 _Not to you_. “I’ve been reading up on the five stages of grief,” she tells him, sticking her hands in her pockets, “and I think I’ve got it...mostly covered. Actually, there were some things I wanted to talk to you about, Dad—.”

 

Just then, his beeper goes off. MK stares at it. “What is that?”

 

“A sensor,” her dad says proudly. “I’ll, um, be right back.” He turns to his wall of computer screens, and types a little bit, frowning. MK breathes in deeply, but before she can say anything, Bomba’s up, beaming. “Just nothing,” he tells her. “Here, let me take your bag. Ozzie, come say hi to Mary Katherine!”

 

“Ozzie? He’s still _alive_?” And here she thought her dad might have killed him by, y’know, forgetting to leave out food.

 

“Well. Most of him,” her dad shrugs, smiling at the pug races out of...somewhere towards MK. She’s startled to see he’s blind in one eye and missing a leg. “He actually has lost a lot of depth perception and,” they watch Ozzie run around MK before rushing off to cause messes elsewhere, “mostly runs in circles. But he ran around you! That’s close.”

 

MK presses her lips together and lets her dad lead the way upstairs.

 

“I have a surprise for you,” he says proudly.

 

Ozzie’s at her heels, and she picks him, a little surprised at how solid his weight is. He turns in her arms, trying to lick her face. “Ozzie, no-no kisses,” she laughs, putting him back down again.

 

“Surprise!” Dad sings out, opening the pink door to her _very_ pink room. “Just as you left it, Mary Katherine.”

 

“Actually, I go by MK, now,” she says as she looks around the room. It literally looks like it hasn’t been touched since her mom packed up the car fourteen years ago. MK’s heart sinks down to her feet as Bomba says excitedly, “Look, you have your paintings, your books, your bed, and hey! Your turtle--,” he doesn’t seem to get it until he looks at her, and then his face falls, and she feels like she’s kicked an overenthusiastic puppy. “Oh. Um, right.”

 

“So how have you been doing?” she asks him. Maybe he’ll get it.

 

He doesn’t. “Oh, things have been just crazy around here. My sensors have been beeping all day, and today is actually a very unusual day. We’ve got a full moon on the Summer Solstice, and that only happens like once in a hundred years!’

 

“Yeah, cool,” she echoes.

 

His beeper goes off again, and he lights right up. “Oh wow, this could be really big, well, I’ll just let you settle in, have some time to yourself, Mary Katherine! I mean, MK!” He once again barrels out of the room and clomps down the stairs. She dimly hears the front door slam shut, and she sighs, leaning back in the toddler bed after grabbing the picture of her and her mom. “I’m trying, Mom,” she tells it, “I’m really trying.”

 

She leans her head back, and tries to doze off.

 

\--

 

Dozing isn’t working, so she gets up and goes downstairs. 9:30 AM, and she’s already bored. _This does not bode well_. She looks at the wall of computers again, and realizes that they’re all video screens. Why does her dad need so many security cameras? He’s pretty alone out here.

 

She sees a regular computer with an iPod jack port, and she checks her iPhone reflexively. Damnit, she’s nearly out of juice (she could have sworn she charged her phone last night).

 

Couldn’t hurt, she reasons. Her laptop’s buried, but before she officially unpacks, she and Dad need to have that talk about research and family. She plugs in her iPhone, and allows the computer to authorize the device just so she can charge the damn thing (his password is _ridiculous,_ and for someone with as many security cameras he does his password should _not_ be his birthday _)_ , before wandering out to find her father. She opens the front door, and Ozzie races out, and barks at Dad, who is currently...in a tree. Okay then.

 

“Why do you have so many security cameras?” she asks, peering up at him. He’s kicking out at a camera, and looks fairly ridiculous. “I mean, there’s, like, nothing to steal here. Except maybe old newspapers.”

 

“Oh, they’re not security cameras,” Dad says enthusiastically. “They’re my network, all through the forest. I don’t know what your mother told you about my work, but--.”

 

“Oh, um, nothing,” MK lies, “just that, you know, you have a delusional belief that an advanced civilization of tiny people that live in the forest, and it ruined your career...and then your marriage,” her voice trails off when he turns to look at her. “So, um, nothing.”

 

Dad laughs a little, his eyes sad, and as they get closer to the house, he kneels down to drop a handful of birdseeds on a doll table, and he opens the door for her, Ozzie following. “Your mother did have a wonderful sense of humor. These little guys—they’re a part of the forest, the _engine_ , if you will. Just like scientists intuit the atom, these guys are there. I know they are.”

 

“Have you ever seen one?” MK asks him.

 

He sputters for a moment, before shaking his finger at her. “Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it isn’t there, Mary—MK. My theory is that they’re literally living faster. Like insects! You know how hard it is to swat a fly? You try but you’re just too slow. I think they live in a different dimension.” He waggles his eyebrows, and MK fights the urge to roll her eyes.

 

“So...why research them, if _you_ haven’t seen them?”

 

“I mean, look at what I’ve found!” He pulls a battered iPod out of his pocket, and he plugs it into the speakers, and she sees a picture of bats.

 

“You have bat sounds on your iPod?” It’s a rhetorical question. Of course he does. “Why?”

 

“I was trying to figure out what frequency that bats used to call each other to congregate, I mean, bats don’t _really_ fly into your hair, that’s a myth,” he rambles, fiddling with his machinery and turning up the volume, “so I slowed their sounds down, and you’ll never guess what I heard?”

 

“Voices,” she sighs, because what else.

 

“That’s right! Voices!” She can hear the mumbling, but there’s nothing distinct about it. “Isn’t that cool?” Ozzie growls at the iPod, but she pats his head to soothe him.

 

She closes her eyes and breathes. _I’m trying. I’m trying_. “Dad, you and I need to talk.”

 

“Of course! I’d love to talk about this with you--.”

 

“No, Dad, about _us_ ,” Dad stops, and looks at her. “You need to stop...all of this. I came here hoping we could have a second chance, but we can’t have that if you don’t try to be...normal or something. Mom’s gone,” here come the tears. She swallows with difficulty, “but we’re still here, and we deserve to have that chance. But you need to give this up, so we can have that chance.”

 

As if in protest to what she’s saying, the sensors start beeping. Dad instinctively goes to the pager, and she slumps. Of course he won’t choose her. Of course. Alarms begin to ring, and he looks panicked. “The readings are off the charts, if I don’t go now, I could miss them.”

 

“You’re missing something right now!” she says, exasperated.

 

“I swear to you, when I’ll get back, we’ll talk about it, Mar—MK. I am so close, this could be it,” he says quickly as he straps on his backpack and his helmet.

 

“I’ll be here,” she says as the front door slams shut. “In _reality_.”

 

She heads upstairs with heavy steps, putting her picture back in her suitcase. Since she didn’t unpack anything other than that, she only needs to pick up her phone and leave the note for Dad. Ozzie whimpers as she tapes the note to a computer screen and unplugs her phone. “I’m sorry, Ozzie. It wasn’t you.” She fishes out the card Larry gave her and plugs in the number, waiting on the ring.

 

Larry picks up. “Larry, Copperbottom Taxi.”

 

“Lar? This is MK, and I’m going to need that getaway--.” She hears a crackle and then nothing, and she looks at her phone. “Gah, no bars!” She tucks her phone into her pocket and starts to head back inside (there _has_ to be a landline somewhere), when Ozzie runs by her, knocking her suitcase into the overgrown garden and running into the forest.

 

The _last_ thing she needs is for Ozzie to get lost, so she starts after him. “Ozzie? Heel! C’mon Ozzie.”

 

Ozzie doesn’t pay attention. He’s acting more crazed than she’s seen from him (yet), and she realizes she’s actually pretty worried about whether he could get back this time.

 

She decides to ditch her mental timetable, and she runs after him. “How can a dog go so fast with only three legs?” she grouses, past the tree line and into the forest proper.

 

She can feel a chill wind starting up and she slows instinctively (she may have been raised a city girl, but only a fool runs in a forest during a storm), stopping to actually watch her surroundings. If she’s been here before, she doesn’t remember it, and she’s suddenly a little scared that she may not be able to get home. She takes out her phone to check it and—yep, still no bars. GPS cannot save her now.

 

Some of the trees she’s passing are dead, and she shivers. “Ozzie! Come on, boy!”

 

Ozzie doesn’t appear.

 

She can dimly hear thunder and the sound of crashing trees, and she’s definitely scared now, because it’s loud, and if she’s learned anything from growing up in the Big Apple, loud means close.

 

A tree could theoretically land on her.

 

“Ozzie,” she calls again, but her voice is quieter. She’s lost now, and she doesn’t know where Dad keeps his network. The storm’s getting closer, and she doubts she can find her way back out before it hits.

 

The solution might be to hang out under a tree until it passes, but that will be cold and wet, and Dad lives in the foothills of the Adirondacks. What’s better, getting sick or run the risk of getting more lost and _still_ maybe getting sick?

 

She’s still deciding when something glowing white flutters in front of her eyes. She watches it fall, confused. It doesn’t look like a butterfly, and once it lands, she sees that it’s a _person_. A tiny person, but a person nonetheless, who is vibrating. Somehow.

 

It’s a woman. MK forgets her dilemma and kneels down, eyes wide. She hears trees groan and looks up to see the trees literally covering them, and she looks back down in time to see a gold, glowing pod-thing float upward, towards her eyes. She catches it instinctively, but nearly drops it. It’s _warm_ , and it starts to tingle in her hands.

 

That’s all she has time to think before she’s being twisted and dragged. She tries to dig in her heels, but it doesn’t take. She takes flight, briefly, and when she lands, her head is ringing. The leaf-pod-thing is tucked into her arms, but she sees the woman (no longer vibrating), and runs to her side, carefully turning her over. “Are you okay— _oh my god that’s an arrow._ You need a doctor—should I pull it out?” she’s babbling, she knows she’s babbling, but this is reminding her way too much of when she had found her mom collapsed in the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I-I don’t know what to do.”

 

The woman’s breathing is raspy. “Take the pod to Nim Galuu,” she says softly, clutching MK’s hand. MK clutches it back, hoping that will somehow pass strength to the woman, “He’ll know what to do.”

 

“What is it?” MK’s definitely freaking out by now, if she wasn’t before. She keeps blinking and seeing her mom there.

 

“It’s the life of the forest,” the woman tries to smile, but blood is starting spill out of her mouth and down her neck. “I can’t take care of it anymore. Protect it.”

 

MK nods. You always agree with a dying person. “I will.”

 

People are landing around them, people in leaf-green armor with weapons. MK pulls the dying woman to her, not sure how she’d fight these people off if they’ve come to finish the woman, but she will protect this woman nonetheless.

 

An older man in green armor and a white vest jumps off his mount and throws aside his helmet, crying, “ _Tara_.” He falls to his knees, and MK can see the pain in his eyes, and she helps pass the woman (“Tara”) to him. He cradles her, and MK feels tears prick her eyes. The man’s pain is really evident, to the point she has to avert her eyes and step away, clutching the pod to her.

 

“So serious,” the woman breathes, before closing her eyes and...fading into a golden mist. The man clutches her to his chest just as she disappears completely, and the arrow falls to the ground. The armored people (MK is not so detached from what’s going on that she can see women among their corps) fall to their knees, and they seem to decide collectively to have a moment of silence as the golden mist passes upward.

 

Finally, the warriors stand back up again, except for the man in the white vest, and MK looks down to see dead grass in a circle around the arrow.

 

_What?_

 

The man stands up slowly, and he looks like he’s aged years. “I’m so sorry,” MK says softly, and she is. She knows that look of grief very well. It’s what Faith wore the week after her mom died and all through the wake and the funeral. It’s what MK still wears when she looks at herself in the mirror.

 

The man looks at her then, but he’s distracted by a redheaded man in full armor (and no vest), who puts a hand on his shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

 

“The queen is dead,” the man says quietly. “We can’t let the forest know, not yet.” He turns to her. “What did she say to you?”

 

“Something about...Galuu? Maybe a canoe?”

 

“Nim Galuu,” the man says, nodding.

 

“What are you going to do?” the redhead says again, this time narrowing his eyes in concentration.

 

“We don’t know anything about the pod without Tara, but Nim might. Take the Leaf-Men back to Moonhaven and fortify it.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“I’ll take the pod to Nim’s myself. Mandrake will be looking for the pod, but he won’t be looking for a Leaf-Man traveling alone.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” the redhead says pointedly. MK silently agrees. She looks down at the pod, and watches it move a tendril along her arm, almost like it’s trying to comfort her.

 

“I know what you meant,” the man says. He’s not smiling, but there’s warmth in his eyes. “Go on.”

 

The redhead nods reluctantly, making a few hand gestures as the armored people disappear into the underbrush.

 

The man in the white vest turns towards her. “My name is Ronin, general of the Leaf-Men. I don’t know what the queen told you--.”

 

MK freezes. A huge bumblebee is flying by her, slower than she’s used to but the size—my god. “That’s a big bug.”

 

“No, actually it’s fairly average,” the man— _Ronin_ —tells her.

 

She looks at him and giggles. “So that means—what? _I’m_ tiny?” She looks at herself, and then at her surroundings. The leaves are _huge_ , and the armored people are smaller than them. Her heart starts to jump, and Ronin starts talking about the queen and that she needs to come with him, but MK isn’t hearing him.

 

“Make me big,” she demands, clutching the pod to her chest.

 

“I—what?”

 

“I’m not doing anything until you make me big again,” she tells him.

 

Ronin shakes his head. “I don’t do magic.” Apparently deciding persuasion is completely out of the question, he tries to tug the pod from her, but it’s not going. The tendrils have wound around her wrists and upper arms, and she resists the pulling. “Nim might--.”

 

“ _Might_?”

 

Out of nowhere, a snail pops in between them. “Okay, first of all, _soldier boy_ , you do _not_ yank on a pod,” the snail turns to MK, sliding towards her. MK backs up, pulling the pod to her chest, “especially one connected to someone so lovely.”

 

“Talking snails,” she says dumbly, because _what?_

 

“Actually, _he’s_ a snail,” the...creature nods toward ostensibly a snail, with a shell, “ _I’m_ a slug. No shell over here, baby. It just slows me down.”

 

A slug is hitting on her. She has officially seen it all, and it’s not even noon yet.

 

“The name’s Mub,” the slug croons. MK feels her back hit a tree, and she sends a pleading look at Ronin over the slug’s head. His jaw clenches, “and that’s Grub.”

 

“What are you doing?” Ronin asks. It’s probably supposed sound polite.

 

“We’re the pod caretakers,” Grub says proudly. “We keep the pod moist.”

 

“Moist is what we do,” Mub says imperiously.

 

“You’re kidding,” Ronin says flatly. When the duo continues to stare at him, he breathes out sharply through his nose. “You’re not kidding. Very well.” He puts two fingers in his mouth and blows sharply. A hummingbird flies down, landing on an exposed root. He picks Mub up by the neck, slamming him onto the back on the bird. Mub complains, but the hummingbird is serene.

 

If a _bird_ can be serene, so can she, so she sets her jaw and stands up straight, and she watches Ronin swing Grub onto Mub. “We’ll have to get another bird,” he tells her, offering her a hand to help her position herself on the saddle (seriously, a _saddle_ on a _hummingbird_ ). “There’s too much weight.” He swings up into the saddle in front of her.

 

“Another bird,” she repeats, holding the pod to her with one hand and carefully holding onto him with the other. He doesn’t seem to notice, so she relaxes somewhat. “Of course.”

 

Flying is...nothing like what she expects. It’s smooth, and though there are dips (she puts it down to the ‘extra weight’), it’s nice.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to be a part of an advanced civilization of tiny people living in the forest, would you?” she asks, looking over the water.

 

Ronin gives her a strange look, and then they both catch sight of the slugs, who have their tongues hanging out as they catch the breeze. Like dogs. “Well, some are more advanced than others.”

 

She giggles. “Your bird seems to know you really well,” she observes, looking down at the water as it changes into land. The forest is beautiful at this level, where she can see the detail.

 

“Part of Leaf-Man training involves raising your own bird from the egg,” Ronin says absently. “He is my partner.”

 

“That makes sense,” she muses, thinking about the fantasy she’s read, about how much of a warrior’s training can involve picking and raising a warhorse. “What’s his name?”

 

Ronin sighs. “Jewelwing.” He half-turns to look at her. “Tara named him.”

 

MK fights the smile. It softens him, in a way, that he would keep the name his queen gave his partner. “You know, where I come from, racing horses have very stuffy names,” she tells him earnestly.

 

He snorts. “Oh really?”

 

“A friend of my mom’s raised racing horses,” she explains, thinking about Aunt Jenna and her love of her Appaloosa horses. “They’d have names like Diamond Star or Snow Dancer, but their nicknames would be Speckle or Sweetheart.”

 

“I’ve gotten to the point with Jewelwing where I don’t need to say his name to direct him,” Ronin says, clicking to the bird as they turn to fly over a meadow. “Something I’m rather grateful for.” He perches the bird on a branch and swings off the saddle. “Stay here. We should keep your presence as quiet as possible.”

 

She watches him go, and then looks at the slugs. The slugs look at her, and Mub sidles up to her. “Soo, MK, what do you think of the forest?”

 

Grub rolls his eyes, which is actually gross, since he has eyestalks. “Really, Mub? Really?”

 

That just gets the two of them started, and MK realizes that when Mub isn’t being a creepy dudebro, he and Grub are actually hilarious.

 

Mub is obsessed with getting her to smile now that they’ve perched, saying, “You are gorgeous, but a smile from you is worth more than the best rose.”

 

“Nice line. Did your mom get it for you?”

 

There’s something about the two of them that reminds her of the dynamic Robert and Andrew (a friend of Robert’s on the debate team) have when they go back and forth, so she automatically slides into the banter she shares—shared—with them.

 

Mub hoots and Grub nudges her appreciatively. “No, your mom gave it to me last night.”

 

It doesn’t sting, which she’s grateful for. “Funny, that’s not what my mom told me. She told me you were...disappointing.”

 

Grub laughs, nudging her again. MK fights a smile, and loses.

 

“See, knew you had a gorgeous smile,” Mub smirks. “Wanna bet I can get the bird to hop?”

 

“I doubt a hummingbird would listen to you.”

 

“Move aside,” Mub tells her. “I bet I can.”

 

Sure enough, Mub gets the hummingbird to hop, and she laughs—honestly laughs—as the bird hops into the cave. Mub and Grub also giggle, and she swings downward on a particularly fierce hop...which is what stops Ronin and a guy who looks to be about her age.

 

They stare, and she feels self-conscious.

 

In the back of her mind, she hears her mother’s voice. _You still know how to laugh_.

 

Of course I do, she replies silently.

 

The boy offers to take her, and Ronin jerks his head, and so unhappily, she complies. She sees how he looks at her. He’s not...rude, and he’s pretty, but he has that air that some of the jocks and dudebros had at school, that cocky, untouchable, I-know-how-hot-I-am-so-you-should-too attitude.

 

She _hates_ it.

 

While they’re up in the air (the boy’s on some sort of sparrow, she thinks), he calls to her, “I’m Nod, by the way.”

 

“MK. Can you please face the way the bird is driving?”

 

“Oh, she practically flies herself.”

 

Like she hasn’t heard _that_ one before. “I’m kind of new to the whole—bird-flying thing, so could you just--?”

 

“You’ve never flown before? We _have_ to fix that. Put your arms around me.”

 

“I just met you,” she tries to keep the edge out of her voice. She tries.

 

Nod shrugs and laughs. Oh yeah, _exactly_ like the jocks and dudebros. “Just warning you, you might want to hang on to something!” He flicks the reins, and the sparrow spirals into a dive.

 

MK’s always hated roller coasters, and she screams the whole way down. Yes, she’s clutching onto Nod, but dear god, warn a girl! “Are you crazy? Why would you do that?!”

 

“Hey, do you know how hard it is to stay on when you fly upside down like that?” he protests.

 

“Now I do!”

 

“Nod,” Ronin barks. “Perch your bird.”

 

They come to a stop on a tree, and Nod pouts at Ronin. “What is it? I’m just trying to keep things...light.” She can hear the drop in his voice (since he _finally_ is facing forward).

 

The world in front of them is completely dead, and MK catches her breath. “What did that?”

 

“Mandrake,” Ronin says quietly. “Tara always kept him contained, but now that she’s gone, so are the barriers. Nothing can heal what he’s destroyed, except that pod,” he nods at the pod in MK’s arms. She holds it tighter, and it encircles her wrist with a tendril in response.

 

“Why did we stop?” Nod asks.

 

“Boggan,” Ronin says shortly, and both MK and Nod look forward to see–was that a crow? “We’ll need to go around.”

 

“It’s just a scout,” Nod argues.

 

“You ever see just one Boggan?”

 

“Um, I think you should really listen,” MK says nervously. She doesn’t know what a Boggan is, but if it puts Ronin on edge, one of the most competent men she’s ever met, they _have_ to be bad.

 

Nod scoffs, and flies forward anyway. With, of-fucking-course, all due speed. MK almost bites through her tongue trying not to scream, and it’s just as they fly towards the dead trees that an entire _cloud_ of crows flows up, and they dimly hear Ronin yell, “To the ground!” The birds fly in low, and MK can hear her heart pounding in her ears. She sees a little grey twisted creature yell and string a bow, and she clutches the pod to her chest as she and Nod jump off the sparrow onto the ground, but there’s not enough time, so Nod grabs her and yells, “Follow me!”

 

She doesn’t exactly have much of a choice.

 

They drop into a hole that has _some_ covering, and MK skids onto her side, nearly against the hole’s wall, but as she sits up and checks the pod for damage, she sees there isn’t any.

 

Good.

 

“What was that thing?” she demands.

 

Nod sits up, running a hand through his hair. “What, you’ve never seen a Boggan before? _Someone_ had a happy childhood.” He stands up, dusting off his shirt. “Come on. Let’s regroup.”

 

“Back up there with that thing? That almost killed us,” she backs up further into the cave, because the Boogie or whatever has _freaked her out_.

 

“Hey, we’re fine now--.” Nod freezes. “Don’t turn around,” he says urgently in a low voice.

 

“Is it a boogie?” she asks, panicked.

 

“No. Just carefully step towards me.”

 

Her curiosity’s pricked, and she carefully turns around. She can hear Nod take quick, quiet steps to her, but she’s too focused on the pair of red eyes heading towards them. She starts to freeze up, terror trickling through her body, but then the eyes clarify into a field mouse.

 

She laughs in relief. _This_ is what Nod was so frightened of? “Oh, it’s a mouse! Hello, mousy.” She kneels to pet it, reminded fondly of the pet field mouse her zoology teacher had. “Look at your whiskers and your little paws.”

 

“What are you doing?” Nod sounds so incredulous, she kind of wants to laugh. Why’s he getting so panicked over a _mouse_?

 

And then the mouse stands up, and _roars_.

 

She didn’t even know mice could sound like that.

 

Apparently screaming like a Regency heroine is on her bill of the day, and she fulfills it to the utmost, running around the mouse. Nod grabs onto her and pulls her with him, to the opening. “Come on! You have to jump!”

 

“I can’t jump that high,” she protests as he jumps up and out.

 

“Yes you can--.”

 

The mouse is _right_ there, and she instinctively jumps up, far higher than she thought she could have. She looks up at him. “Did you see that!” She straightens from her crouch (can’t stop being a dance major even at 2 inches tall tall), grinning.

 

Nod is rolling his eyes in exasperation. “ _Out_ , jump _out!_ ”

 

The mouse lunges for her again, and she smiles, jumping up and—

 

\--

 

“Dad, I had the most messed up dream,” she yawns, slowly sitting up. She could’ve sworn she hadn’t had anything to drink, so why does it feel like she has a hangover? “There were talking slugs, and _tiny_ little soldiers, and,” she blinks at Ronin, who looks a little amused. She lets her head loll back. “Oh _man_.”

 

“Are you all right?” Ronin asks brusquely.

 

“She hit her head pretty bad, Ronin,” Nod’s standing next to him, and she can’t get a read on him. MK tries to get up, but both of them place their hands on her shoulders and keep her down.

 

“You’ve injured your head. Until I look it over, you should stay sitting,” Ronin tells her. “You could have a concussion.”

 

“Have actually had a concussion,” she protests as Nod tilts her head forward, undoing her ponytail so he can check the bump on her head with his fingers. She shudders when he brushes against the rising bump, “and this isn’t one.”

 

“How did you get a concussion?” Nod inquires, grazing his fingers around the bump, so lightly she can’t feel the pressure.

 

She thinks. “When I fell out of a tree when I was fourteen.”

 

“What were you doing in the tree?”

 

“Climbing it, duh. Broke my leg too.”

 

“There’s no blood,” Nod reports to Ronin, who’s back over. “But she could be woozy for a while.”

 

“I’m perfectly fine,” she snaps at him, trying to stand up, but her legs are shaking and she sits back down with a thump. “Well, fine-ish.”

 

“New seating arrangement,” Ronin orders. “You get the slugs, and she’s riding with me. Your flying could aggravate her wound.”

 

“Thank you,” she says gratefully, glaring at Nod as Ronin smears some kind of cream over the bump. “Flyboy’s too concerned about the adrenaline rush to fly safely.”

 

“Hey, how could I have known?” he retorts, handing Ronin some kind of cloth.

 

“How about listening to your commanding officer? Hey, you’re not going to cut my hair, are you?”

 

“No, I am not cutting your hair,” Ronin says patiently, winding the cloth around her head. “The balm is something that Tara makes-made for the Leaf-Men. If there’s prolonged contact with the wound, as long as it’s superficial, it will heal within minutes.”

 

“Oh, okay then.” The angle that he’s standing at means she can’t see him, but her heart aches for him. His voice doesn’t catch, not the way hers does when she talks about her mom, but there’s a profound sense of grief emanating from him.

 

How do we process this? She wonders as Ronin helps her stand. She is substantially less woozy, and the ache in her head is becoming less...achy. How do we deal with grief?

 

She can tell that her dad’s repressing with everything he has. So is Ronin. And her?

 

Maybe she’s repressing more than she’d like to admit.

 

Ronin’s head tilts, and he nods. “You should be fine,” he says as he assists her over to his hummingbird. The bird looks at her with deep suspicion, and she’s offended as Ronin carefully pulls away the bandage, “However, you should be careful and try to avoid injuring yourself further.”

 

“I’m not _him_ ,” MK points at Nod, insulted.

 

Ronin’s shoulders quirk, and he suddenly looks like he’s holding back laughter. “Fair enough,” he nods. “Do you require assistance?”

 

“No, I got this,” MK tucks the pod against her, and jumps onto the saddle—or tries to. The bird moves out of the way (fuck you hummingbird), and she face-plants.

 

Nod doesn’t laugh, but she can _feel_ his amusement.

 

Ronin does that emanating amusement thing again as he pulls her to his feet, and this time, he helps her onto the saddle. The hummingbird gives her a baleful look and she sticks her tongue out at it, and then Ronin’s in the saddle, clicking to the bird and they’re off. The wind musses her hair in a non-Disney princess way, so the first time they perch, she ties it back up again.

 

Nod’s struggling with the slugs, and she smothers the giggles with her hand. The pod seems like it’s amused too, because it shakes slightly in her hands. “Why is he with us anyway?” she asks Ronin. “He’s not helping.”

 

They perch in time to see Nod attempt to perch, only to get slammed between the slugs. She hears Ronin’s tiny sigh at it, and he half-turns to address her over his shoulder. “When he’s not being an idiot, he’s a decent flyer. Plus, his father was my friend, so I do what I can. Many leaves, one tree.”

 

“What does that mean?” she asks, fascinated.

 

“We’re all individuals, but we’re all connected.”

 

If _that’s_ not the best philosophy she’s ever heard, everything else is wrong. How many people insist on the importance of individuality? Or the people who are all ‘needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?’ That’s a nice compromise, but she looks down at the pod. “You’re all connected, but I’m kind of on my own.”

 

“No one is alone,” Ronin corrects her as they move to perch again. He jerks his head slightly at Nod, who, once again, is slammed between the two slugs. “Not even him. And he wants to be.”

 

“Let me guess, you don’t make friends easily, so you cherish the ones you have?”

 

He half-shrugs. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

 

“I know what that’s like,” she tells him. She cradles the pod to her chest. Deep, personal confessions are easier when you’re not looking at the person you’re talking to. “I don’t have many friends, especially not now.” _Teenagers never know how to deal with the loss of a relative, so the not-serious ones always fade away._

 

Ronin frowns (she can tell by the flexing of his jaw), but they land on a branch and she can see all of these people flowing into this big tree, and she hears Grub complain, “I thought this was a _secret_ Leaf-Man mission. How many people did the queen tell about this?”

 

“They’re looking for answers. They don’t know yet that the queen is gone, only that the blight is spreading,” Ronin says patiently, steadying the hummingbird so MK can slide off the saddle. Her head doesn’t hurt at _all_ , and she hums to herself as the pod sneaks a tendril past the hem of her sleeve, curling loosely around the flesh of her wrist.

 

She lets it. It’s comforting.

 

“So...Nim Galuu. Who is he?” she asks them as they perch their birds and join the crowd streaming into the tree. There are so many people, and they all look so strange.

 

“He is the keeper of our history,” Ronin tells her while scanning the crowd, blue eyes hard. “However, he can be a little behind the times.”

 

“So, he’s like the wise old man of the forest?” she asks Nod.

 

Nod shrugs a shoulder. “More like the crazy uncle.”

 

MK frowns at that. If someone is, well, not stable, should they be keeping an entire culture’s history? Whatever, this isn’t _her_ culture, and you could definitely argue home isn’t run by the most, um, stable people. Guests who live in dirty homes shouldn’t critique their host’s dusting.

 

They come to a stop in the middle of a large room, and MK can tell Ronin isn’t happy with the security of it. The pod isn’t either; she can feel it wrap more tendrils around her arms, securing itself to her.

 

The room darkens, and a spotlight shines. The pod _definitely_ does not like this, because its grip on her tightens until she gasps from the pressure on her wrists. Ronin glances over at her, and he frowns, moving over a little. “What wrong?”

 

“I don’t think the pod likes the dark,” she replies, twisting her wrists (or trying to), while rubbing the petals of the pods with the tips of her fingers. Ronin presses his lips together, but he doesn’t try to loosen the grip. She’s pretty sure that he thinks it would only cause the pod to hang on more tightly. The pod loosens its grips slightly (because of the caresses or the twisting, MK doesn’t care as long as she has feeling in her fingers), and as the lights start to come on up as Nim Galuu sings (actually _sings_ ), and she’s a little impressed with the white...moths that come at his call. Yeah, they’re definitely moths.

 

Nod’s laughing with the other patrons of the place, but Ronin grabs onto both of their elbows and drags them through the crush of people until they find a staircase. “Aw, come on, I was enjoying that,” Nod complains.

 

“We do have a job to do,” Ronin says tersely.

 

“I told you, I’m not a--.”

 

“Ronin!” Nim looks absolutely flustered as he escapes the spotlight. “Did you know that the queen is dead?”

 

“Yes, that’s why--.”

 

“And the royal pod is missing!”

 

“No, Nim, we’ve got it--.”

 

“Oh good, but we’ve got to hide it, keep it away from Mandrake. Take it far away!” Just then he spots the pod in MK’s arms, tendrils wrapped firmly around MK’s wrists and lower arms. “Why’d you bring it here?!”

 

“The queen’s last words were ‘Take the pod to Nim Galuu.’” MK fights to keep her voice even. Replaying that scene in her mind makes all sorts of tears and lumps rise up in her throat.

 

The pod reluctantly (dear god, how is this thing even sentient?) lets go of her as she passes the pod to Nim Galuu. The tendrils wind around the pod, and MK feels a rather absurd sense of pride that it only touches _her_.

 

No, she’s going to get big again. She can’t take pride in sentient plant tentacles.

 

“Did she say anything else? Maybe a note, even?”

 

“They were her _last_ words,” MK says, fighting the frustration. She wants to go home. “I thought you were magic!”

 

“Magic? More like...charismatic. Possibly charming?” he smiles, rubbing his neck, but MK rolls her eyes. She _so_ doesn’t have time for this.

 

“Do you know what to do?” Ronin demands.

 

“Not a clue. But I might know where we can get one.” Nim starts to wander onto the balcony-stage thing, and abruptly turns around once he sees the people clustered at the bottom. His exit’s accompanied by boos as he hurriedly says, “This way.”

 

They pile into the elevator, a pretty, curled thing that MK honestly wonders how it takes their weight. She sneaks glances at the pod, nestled in Nim’s arms, and fights the urge to ask for it back.

 

“Is it true everything that happens in the forest is recorded?” Grub asks suddenly.

 

“Yes, every event,” Nim tells him.

 

“What about this? Is this being recorded?”

 

“Yes,” Nim says, raising an eyebrow. MK exchanges looks with Nod. Ronin just looks unhappy.

 

“What about this?” Mub asks excitedly as he sucks in his eyestalks and twirls them in his mouth. MK cringes as Grub follows suit and pulls his shell up to his head.

 

“Yes,” Nim says, long-suffering.

 

“And this?” They start to bang their eyestalks together, and it continues as they go down three levels.

 

MK’s nerves are on edge, and if that’s how _she_ feels, she can’t imagine how Ronin and Nod are taking this. She fists her hand in her neckline, breathing deeply to get rid of the some of the nervousness.

 

“So all of that was recorded?” Grub asks breathlessly once they hit the final level.

 

“Yep! It’s right here,” Nim takes it from a passing moth and then, without ceremony, unfurls it and rips off the last two...inches?

 

Mub and Grub share identical disappointed looks, and MK looks at Nod, fighting a smile. Nod chuckles.

 

“All right, blooming a pod. Gotta go way back...” Nim starts to mutter to himself as he crawls over the collected scrolls. “Nope, not it. Picking a pod, nope, training a queen...”

 

MK stares, and she feels Ronin and Nod come up behind her on either side. She peeks at them—Nod’s got his hands on his hips, brow furrowed, while Ronin has his arms crossed, looking at Nim with no discernible interest.

 

“Ah-ha, got it,” Nim exclaims, pulling out a scroll with a flourish. “Blooming a pod. Okay...good news, once the queen has picked a pod, it will bloom no matter what. Needs to be kept moist...”

 

MK sees the looks that Mub and Grub shoot Ronin, and she presses her lips together to keep from laughing.

 

“Once the moon’s reached its highest peak and the pod is placed in the lily grove in the light, the pod will bloom and pick a new queen. Yeah, moist, moon, highest peak, bloom. Mentions it a bunch of times,” Nim grins. “Here I thought we were doomed! This calls for a celebration!”

 

“We’ve earned it,” Mub says, eyeing Ronin. Nim shakes his head and gives the pod to Mub, who clutches it.

 

MK breathes in, trying not to ask for it back. The pod _needs_ to be moist, but she doesn’t feel right with it out of her arms. She can keep it safe. As the rest of the group heads back for the elevator, she realizes this is her chance. She turns to Nim, who seemed to somehow sense she was waiting for this. “Um, this may sound strange, but I’m not from this world, and I want to know how I can get back. Can you send me back?”

 

“Not exactly,” Nim tells her, “but I can give you something else.” A passing moth deposits a scroll in his hands, and he passes it onto her, “Thanks, Marty.”

 

MK unfurls it, and frowns at the faint writing. “I can’t read this.”

 

“It’s just a little dusty. Blow it off,” Nim encourages, and MK gives him a strange look as she turns on her heel, doing so.

 

A world in shimmering greens unfolds around her, and she sees the queen lying on the ground. “It’s you,” she breathes.

 

“Come closer,” Tara rasps out.

 

“Oh my god, this is great! You can make me big again.”

 

“Closer,” Tara says again. As MK crouches down, Tara says, “If you can hear me, it means you got to Nim’s. You have to be there for the pod. I can’t protect it anymore. Once the pod blooms, you’ll get what you’ve earned, for giving up what you have.”

 

“It’s a memory,” MK realizes, gasping a little when she sees her— _big_ her—slam a hand down next to the queen. “Why would you pick me? This has nothing to do with me—why give me the pod at all?”

 

“You have a part in this,” Tara says quietly, and MK almost believes this isn’t a memory, because the response is so on-point. “Maybe you can’t see the connections yet, but they’re there.” Tara kisses the pod, filling it with a golden light, and then releases it, and Big MK catches it.

 

MK hears the echo of Tara’s last request as the shimmering greens fade out into the half-dark, half-light of the tree, and she backs up until she hits something, and she turns with a gasp to see Nim with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Well, that was intense. I’ve gotta read more of these.”

 

“What does that even mean, I’ll ‘get what I earn, for giving up what I have?’ I need to go home!”

 

“I don’t know, but why are you trying to get home so bad, when you left in the first place?” Nim wiggles the scroll at her, “Scrolls tell all, dear heart.”

 

MK shakes her head and goes to the elevator. Apparently, the rest of them took it up, so she goes up alone as she sees Nim wander through the rest of the scrolls, and when she gets up to the main floor, she feels a little disoriented with how...populated it is.

 

She can’t see Ronin through the crush of people, but she does see Nod, who smiles at her as she waves a hand at him, maneuvering through all the people (what are they called, anyway?) until she reaches him.

 

“Hey,” she says softly.

 

“Hey. So, I’ve been thinking that just maybe I didn’t make the best first impression,” Nod drawls, sticking his hands in his pockets.

 

“What gives you that idea?”

 

“Maybe the screaming and the yelling and calling me ‘flyboy.’’ Nod looks fond. “My mom calls me that sometimes. She can’t stand how I fly.”

 

MK doesn’t really know what to say to that. Did he just compare her to his mother?

 

“But then I realized you must not be from around here,” Nod continues, running a hand through his hair and smiling again. His mouth was made for smiling, she decides, eyeing his dimples.

 

“What makes you say that?” she teases. When he’s not being ‘that guy’, he can actually be char—endearing. Definitely endearing.

 

“’Cause I’d remember you.”

 

Boy is _smooth_.

 

“Look, this is a little too loud. Want to go somewhere quieter?”

 

MK looks around them. “Would Ronin be okay with that?” What about the pod?

 

“He told me to watch the pod, but there’s no safer place in the entire forest than Nim’s tree, so...” Nod extends his hand.

 

There’s no safer place until there isn’t, she thinks, but Nod knows the forest better than she does, and she wants away from all of the people she doesn’t know, so she takes his hand.

 

He half-turns, and then they’re falling out of the tree, and she feels herself screaming (you know, you’d think if you were small, you would have _less_ rollercoaster moments), until she lands on her feet on a large leaf. Amazingly, she’s not even shaking. “Huh, that actually gets easier.”

 

“Look,” Nod whispers, turning her head until she sees a stag picking his way to them. His antlers are _huge_ , and his fur is a deep brown. She gasps in wonder as the stag stops, right in front of them, and she extends a hand to his nose. The stag breathes out over her hand, and she giggles. She turns to look at Nod, but he’s not there (is he _Batman_?).

 

“Hey,” he tells her, perched on one of the antlers. “Come on.” He ducks his head and grins, “Put your arms around me.”

 

“But I barely know you,” she returns, trying not to grin. There’s something about the silence and the stag. That has to be it.

 

“Do you want to ride him or not?”

 

Now she definitely can’t hide her grin, and she lets Nod pull her up, onto the antlers of the stag. The stag waits until she settles, and then they turn, away from the tree into the forest, and her feet feel _great_ , hanging there. “I’ve gotta admit, flying’s nice,” she tells him (and when she’s not being twisted and twirled, it is), “but _this_ is riding in style.”

 

“It’s not everyone who can do it,” Nod admits. “You’ve got to be gentle to ride a deer.” He looks away from her, like whatever he’s thinking is too painful to keep looking at someone else. “My dad taught me.”

 

Impulsively, she twines her fingers with his, and he looks at her. “You must really miss him.” Now it’s _her_ turn to look away. “I know what that’s like.”

 

“You’ve lost someone too?”

 

“My mom,” she says quietly, “Lupus.”

 

“What’s lupus?”

 

Oh right, tiny people in the woods, they probably don’t have lupus. Must be nice. “It’s a disease that makes you rot from the inside out, because your body attacks itself.”

 

Nod squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry.”

 

And for the first time since the funeral, she believes someone who says it. “Thank you.” The stag comes to a stop, greeting a few does, which bow before him.

 

From what MK remembers of her zoology class, that isn’t normal deer behavior, but she writes it off, because her final project was on silver-haired bats anyway.

 

Nod’s not letting go of her hand, and it’s nice, to be touched in comfort without anyone making anything of it ( _Robert_ ), when she feels her stomach twist and she bends over, wrapping her arms around it.

 

“What’s wrong?” Nod asks frantically, placing a hand on her shoulder and the other between her shoulder blades. Oh right, antlers, falling.

 

MK doesn’t know, and then she does. “The pod! Something’s wrong.”

 

The stag’s head tilts, and then he’s turning, running back to Nim’s tree, and it feels like flying, but it isn’t fast enough, because her stomach is knotted and it’s almost like the cramps she has for her period, but it’s the wrong time.

 

She does hear Nod mutter, “Ronin is going to _kill_ me.”

 

He’s going to kill the two of them, she thinks as she fights to breathe. And they’ll have deserved it. What were they thinking, leaving the pod?

 

Once they get up to the tree, the stag eyes them, and then tosses his head, allowing her and Nod to jump up to the window where they previously jumped down.

 

People on the main floor are clustered in huddles, whispering and rocking back and forth. The room looks wrecked, and MK doesn’t need to be magic to know something bad has happened.

 

Her twisted feeling isn’t getting any better, and she clutches the wall for support. She’s...afraid.

 

She can see traces of what looks like blight (blight on the inside of a tree without marking the outside?), and she stands up to ask Nod, but Ronin comes swooping in out of nowhere, pinning Nod to the wall by the front of his shirt. “You had one job, to stay with the pod,” Ronin’s so angry she half-expects to see smoke come out of his mouth. “That’s all you had to do. But no, you think only of yourself.”

 

MK interjects, “It wasn’t all his fault—I’m partially to blame--.”

 

She wants to get between the two of them, but she honestly doesn’t know what Ronin would do if she did.

 

“The pod is lost, and that’s all I have— _we_ will everhave left of Tara,” Ronin spits. “And you,” he turns on her, “I expect this from him, but _you_ should know better.”

 

Wow, Ronin, hit the buttons Mom used to hit when she was disappointed.

 

She feels her shoulders slump, but she breathes in deeply. “You’re right. The pod was my responsibility. I’ll do whatever it takes to get it back.”

 

Her stomach’s still twisted, but the pressure has alleviated slightly. MK doesn’t know what that means.

 

“That’s very kind,” and sarcasm drips from Ronin like syrup from a bottle, “but it’s too dangerous for you to come to Wrathwood. I’m going alone.”

 

He clicks to his hummingbird, which hops forward until he’s at the lip of the opening in the tree, and Ronin double-checks the straps. “Hey, what about that whole leaves, tree thing,” MK retorts, looking at Nod. Nim’s come up without her noticing ( _HOW_ ), and when Nod shrugs helplessly, she whirls on Nim. “Tell him, Nim.”

 

Nod’s own bird is perched at the lip, and it’s a tight opening, and it’s not made any easier by Nim’s constant gesticulating. “Look, kid, full moon’s coming up. It’s bloom or die time, and we’ve got to get that pod back.”

 

“Maybe we could sneak in,” Nod offers. He’s not looking up, probably thinking Ronin’ll shoot it down.

 

“Oh, great idea.” Yep, Ronin’s shooting it down. “I’ll be a grasshopper, and you can be my cricket lady friend.”

 

It’s completely inappropriate, but MK feels giggles coming on from the mental image.

 

“No, it’s a good idea,” MK cuts in before Ronin can say anything else.

 

“I don’t happen to have Boggan armor lying around, do you?”

 

She smirks. “I know where we can get some.”

 

Ronin’s taken aback, if that infinitesimal eyebrow raise is anything to go by. He looks at Nim, who grins. “Well, six hands are better than two.”

 

Ronin sighs. “We have to be fast,” he warns.

 

MK feels her smirk widen, and she swings up onto Nod’s bird in front of him, rolling up her sleeves. “Then what are we waiting for?” As Nod gingerly climbs up behind her, she adds, “You might want to hang on.”

 

\--

 

Her dad’s house is well-lit, a sudden spotlight in the forest clearing, and she blinks for a moment as they push open the window (Dad _really_ needs better security). They freeze when a jar falls off the windowsill, but when her dad doesn’t come storming in, she enters the house and realizes something she hadn’t previously known—what was an easy space for her to cross when she was big is now a huge space, and she pauses, feeling overwhelmed.

 

Nod and Ronin have leapt onto the cupboard against the window, and Nod turns towards her. “The Boggan armor—where is it?”

 

She points to the island table. “There—it’s there.”

 

“Let’s make this quick,” Ronin says tersely, jumping across the gap, landing on a jar and then onto the island table.

 

Nod takes a few steps back, and then jumps from the cupboard over a couple of jars, before flipping to a stop on the floor.

 

MK bites her lip, wondering how to do this. She maps the space with her eyes, before nodding to herself and taking a running leap (complete with cartwheel, can take the girl out of dance but can’t take the dance out of the girl), and she flips on her way down, and she thinks that she might actually be able to land gracefully on her chosen jar, but it’s not screwed on tightly ( _DAD_ ), and she slips, face-planting on a jar a little further below.

 

 _Ow_.

 

She stands up carefully, and decides to go for the safe route this time, so she slips down the jar, holding onto the lid and judging her landing, and she falls straight down—onto some pencils, which then roll her across the floor and under the table, deep into the dust bunnies.

 

She wonders if she can just hang out there for a while, let her embarrassment consume her.

 

“Come on,” Nod says kindly, offering her his hand.

 

Nope, no ‘consumed with embarrassment for the rest of the evening.’ She lets herself be pulled up, grossed out by the dust clinging to her leg and her hair. “That was awesome,” Nod tells her, helping her brush off the rest of the dust.

 

“Man, that is some serious static cling,” she says in frustration when the dust on her leg and hair won’t go away, and she reaches out to the stool legs to lean on while she brushes away the dust, but Nod tries to grab her.

 

“That’s metal, don’t touch--.”

 

Too late.

 

She didn’t choose a life filled with humiliation, life filled with humiliation chose her.

 

“Could be worse?” Nod offers as he helps her up again.

 

She points at him, poking his chest with the tip of her finger. “If you say ‘could be raining,’ I will _end you_.”

 

“Ow,” he complains when she zaps him. “Quit it,” he says, poking her back.

 

“I’m not doing anything,” she protests, poking him in return.

 

“Oi,” Ronin calls down. “Knock it off.”

 

“Stop it,” Nod tells her, wincing at her action, poking her arm.

 

“Leave me alone.”

 

“We’re wasting time,” Ronin snaps.

 

Oh right, pod. Boggan armor. Got it.

 

“Up you go,” Nod says, giving her a boost onto the stool. She feels her stomach flutter a little—she’s not used to that kind of flirting. Robert and the few guys she’s dated were always very careful about personal space, only touching her when she initiates it. That Nod...doesn’t would usually annoy her, but she decides to rationalize it in that she doesn’t know how to be small, and he does.

 

Yeah, let’s go with that.

 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket as they walk across the length of the table, and she pulls it out, irrationally happy that the screen isn’t cracked. However, that happiness fades away the moment she sees she has almost 26 messages from Faith.

 

“What is that?” Nod whispers, nodding at her phone.

 

“My iPhone,” she says, scanning through her messages. Apparently her dad called Faith once he got her message to say MK was coming home?

 

Faith is _freaking out_.

 

‘Pls tell me u r ok,’ reads the latest one, ‘or police involved.’

 

 _Fuck_. She lets Nod and Ronin go ahead to the glass cases, typing out a quick message, ‘Fine. Got sidetracked, will explain later. Don’t call police, dad not responsible. Won’t believe me when I tell u.’

 

It won’t be enough for longer than maybe a couple of hours, but MK hopes she’ll be home by then.

 

As she slides out of her text messages, she sees that her music library has ballooned, and she scans through it, wondering when she added so mu—oh, _right_ , she plugged in her phone to Dad’s computer, so his stuff got added to hers. Whatever, she can go through it and delete stuff later.

 

“This looks familiar,” Nod is saying once she caches up to them. “Hey, that’s my saddle.” He jerks out a saddle that looks a lot like Ronin’s from the display cases, grumbling. “Where are we?”

 

They hear a huge reverberation, and all three of them look over to see her dad walk into the room, and she gasps. She doesn’t know what she was expecting, but she thinks that maybe she was hoping her dad would be out, ‘getting readings’ or something.

 

“Oh, that’s where this guy lives,” Ronin says with zero enthusiasm. He jumps on top of a jar, where they can better observe him with a black box.

 

“This guy—oh wow,” Nod shakes his head, laughing slightly. He looks at MK. “Most Stompers come and go, but this guy’s been crashing around the forest for years.”

 

“He’s obsessed with finding us,” Ronin adds, standing and adjusting his sword. “Obviously, that’s a security risk, so we’ve been leading him off on wrong trails. Can’t have his big, fat feet stomping all over Moonhaven.”

 

Is this what people really think of her dad? She knows her mom loved him in a deep, sorrow/angry-filled way, and Faith thinks of him with some disgust. Grandma Lyse (her dad’s mother) loves him but doesn’t understand him, and her? Well, she thinks he’s a little off, but he was right about the Leaf-Men, even if he’s obsessive.

 

Still doesn’t justify his years of ignoring you, she reminds herself as Nod tacks on, “One of his big, flabby, stinky, ginormous--.”

 

She stands up abruptly. “All right, I get it.”

 

“Look at his map,” Ronin tells her conspiratorially. “We’ve got him looking everywhere but where Moonhaven actually is.”

 

“So you’re just...messing with him?” she’s actually offended on her dad’s behalf. Wonders never cease. “But he’s found all this stuff.”

 

“He only finds what we want him to find,” Ronin says dismissively, walking towards the Boggan armor on display. “I-We have a responsibility to protect our people. We know what’s happened to others who’ve been discovered.”

 

That’s...fair.

 

“I _love_ how this guy talks,” Nod laughs. “Look—at—this—flower.”

 

Okay, poking fun at her dad is done.

 

“I—hurt—my—elbow,” Ronin adds.

 

“Hey,” MK protests. “That’s enough.”

 

“Who—said—that--”

 

“He’s my dad!” There. “I’m a Stomper.” She whirls on Nod, who stares at her before snorting.

 

“What happened, you got shrunk?”

 

“Yes! Which _he_ knows,” she gestures at Ronin.

 

Nod stares. “Seriously?!”

 

Ronin looks to be _this_ close to laughing at the two of them. “It’s been a weird day for everybody.”

 

“Got a problem with Stompers?” she asks Nod venomously.

 

He sighs and looks down. “A Stomper squashed my uncle.”

 

She grabs his wrist. “Oh my god, really?”

 

He keeps it up for a moment, before shaking his head and laughing. “No, I’m just messing with you.”

 

She narrows her eyes and punches him in the shoulder. “ _Ugh_ ,” she says, marching off in disgust.

 

MK watches her dad go through the black box, and she can hear him muttering, “Maybe—she—was—right—about—me. All—I—do—is—push—people—away.”

 

She hadn’t said that, so it must’ve been her mom. Her heart twists, but then that little, bitter voice within her reminds her that he had plenty of opportunities to not push her away, and he did anyway.

 

For once, she ignores the bitter voice and hops down to the carpet. “Dad! Dad, I’m right here! Please, just _turn around_!”

 

Standing there, waving her arms and shouting for him to look down, she suddenly remembers when she was little, and her dad was muttering to himself about something while examining a book. She can’t remember where her mom was, but she stood in the doorway to his study, clutching her stuffed turtle, asking, “Daddy?” But he never turned around.

 

She can’t remember what she wanted, but she was little and upset that he wasn’t paying attention to her.

 

She feels like that now, so she shoves her hands in her pockets and turns away from him, only to face Ozzie.

 

“Uh oh,” she whispers. “Ozzie? No kisses!”

 

Ozzie can’t understand, because he lunges for her, mouth open. She turns and runs, screaming, because her life has been a horror film today.

 

Ozzie runs in circles. So, apparently, does she.

 

Just as she rounds the table-island for the second time, she sees Ronin and Nod, and as she ducks behind the two of them, Nod unsheathes his sword in a fluid movement she’s jealous for. “Are you okay?”

 

Ozzie rounds the corner, tongue lolling from his mouth.

 

Nod drops his burden and grabs her hand. “ _Run!_ ” He drags her along, and this really isn’t the time to wonder about why she doesn’t tell him not to touch her.

 

This time, they go clockwise around the table-island, and when MK disobeys her horror film education to look over her shoulder, her eyes meet her dad’s. Panic flares, because _he can see them_. Oh god. Could this get any worse?

 

God, Ronin, that _wasn’t an invitation_.

 

Ronin’s in a crouch, pulling back a weird bone bow, aiming for Ozzie. “No,” MK cries, pushing his arm to the side, and the loosed arrow hits her dad in the leg, and he cries out, dropping the vacuum-thing and jerking into the table.

 

“I—hurt—my—elbow,” her dad bellows, and Nod points.

 

“Did you hear that? He _actually_ said it! Uh-oh,” the coffee mug full of old coffee falls from the table, heading straight for Nod. He jumps clear, falling into a tumble and rolling into a crouch. He stops by Ronin and MK, standing up in a motion she recognizes.

 

Ronin scans the room, and his eyes land on something—MK tries to follow his line of sight, but she doesn’t see it—and he backs up, jumping and using soaked, meek Ozzie’s ear to tuck himself into a roll, landing by the window. He undoes the rope holding up the blinds— _oh_. That makes sense.

 

“Come on,” Nod shouts, pulling MK to her feet to catch the rope, and Ronin lets the blind go down (thanks, physics). MK sees her dad scramble to his feet, but he can’t get the vacuum-thing started up, and they all come to a stop on the windowsill, and they escape through it before her dad looks up.

 

As they mount up, Ronin grabs her arm. “We should talk about how you should absolutely never do that again,” he says harshly.

 

She blinks. _What?_

 

He must get her confusion, because he sighs. “Do not ever get in the way of my shot again,” his eyes are serious, and she feels her size. “I could’ve hit you. Those were Boggan arrows, they’re what—”

 

Killed Tara. Oh fuck.

 

“That’s my dog,” she argues. “He doesn’t deserve that.”

 

“He was a threat,” Ronin argues right back, letting her go so that they can fly off before her dad can push open the window.

 

“Yeah, maybe, but I’m not going to cause my dog’s death.” She takes a deep breath, chancing a look back. Her dad’s half-hanging out of the window, adjusting his helmet lenses, and she turns back around, holding onto Nod as they up their speed. “I forgot Ozzie was there.”

 

Ronin looks at her incredulously ( _he_ clearly never forgets a threat), but shakes his head.

 

“So, you left him, right?” Nod asks a while later. They’re heading for a part of the forest MK’s never seen, and the air is growing colder—not exactly helped by the wild flight. “I mean, if that’s your dad, and you’re with us...”

 

“My mom asked me to give him a chance,” she explains softly, seeing Ronin slow down his bird so he can listen to what she says. “You never deny a dying person anything, so I did.”

 

“And?” Nod prompts. This matters to him. Oh right, he lost his dad.

 

“And...we talked. He’s more concerned about finding you guys than about being a father, so I left,” she shrugs, seeing lush trees fade into a grey, dead wasteland. “If there’s anything my mom taught me, you put your kid first. My dad doesn’t get that.”

 

“Is it possible you’re expecting him to act like your mother?” Ronin is also strangely intent on this, even though she knows he mocks her dad (on a maybe regular basis).

 

“No,” she says firmly. “Like, for example, my zoology teacher gave us a species we had to study all year. I got bats. I came around here to do my case study, and I called him, to see if he wanted to do lunch or something since I was here. He never picked up the phone. My mom told me once that when you have a kid, you put your kid first. He never did that.”

 

Ronin’s face twists, and Nod’s looking at him, but whatever backstory there is there, she’s not going to get a chance to find out, because Ronin directs them to perch.

 

Once they dismount, Ronin unloads the Boggan armor. He tosses some to Nod, who immediately starts strapping it to his body. Ronin straps his on very quickly, and MK taps her foot. She may be doing the whole damsel-in-distress thing today but—

 

“Here,” Ronin shoves some stuff into her hands. “Here’s how you tie it on.”

 

Boggan ties are _complicated_.

 

Okay, she forgives him.

 

She ends up with a weird cured animal hide dress thing, and once that’s tied around her (she shudders, because even though it’s not up against direct skin it feels _gross_ ), Ronin places a skull on her head.

 

“Ugh, it smells like something died in here,” she complains.

 

“Something did.”

 

Oh, ha ha, Ronin.

 

“How do we know where we’re going?” Nod whispers as they join the Boggans walking into the giant, decayed tree.

 

“I do,” Ronin says shortly, looking around carefully. Nod and Ronin are not...subtle about the way they’ve sandwiched her between them, the same way they did when they got to Nim’s, and when all of this is over, MK fully expects Nod to go back to being a Leaf-Man. He’s cut out for this, just like Ronin thinks.

 

If he weren’t, he wouldn’t care so much about protecting her.

 

“Your dad and I came here once,” Ronin adds, speaking quietly under the din of the Boggans yelling and other noise.

 

“He never told me that,” Nod says, surprised.

 

“He never got the chance.”

_Oh shit_. That sucks. That means he died here, doesn’t it? Nod gets it too, because he glances back at Ronin, eyes narrowed, before they enter the tree itself.

 

MK feels her feet lag a little, because it’s so much than she could have thought, but it feels decidedly unwelcome, and maybe that’s the point, that only Boggans are welcome here, but each breath feels like knives in her lungs.

 

Have they just walked into Mordor?

 

MK’s looking around, trying not to be too obvious about it, when she runs into something, and she whips her head, hoping it isn’t a Boggan.

 

It’s a bat. She breathes in, but Nod, apparently sensing the gasp, places his hand over her mouth. “Come on,” he whispers.

 

“This is wrong,” she tells him and Ronin quietly, examining the bat. “This is a silver-haired bat.”

 

“So?”

 

“They don’t roost in caves like this,” MK says, looking up. “In fact, silver-haired bats don’t roost like this at all. They’re solitary.”

 

“So?” Nod repeats, tugging her along. She lets him.

 

“This is wrong. These bats don’t behave like this.”

 

“Mandrake has a gift for thrall,” Ronin says cryptically. “Once we get out of this, I’ll explain.”

 

“I’ll hold you to that,” she promises, staring up at the bats. She actually likes bats, and though Lake George is way out of her way, she spent a lot of time at North Country Wild Care for her case study. “Do silver-haired bats attack Leaf-Men?”

 

“No,” Nod says, shaking his head. “They tend to leave us alone. I think we’re too big for them.”

 

Ronin throws out an arm to stop them. “Be careful,” he warns, and they all look down to see a series of bridges and walkways. The Boggans below look like maggots, and MK’s skin crawls. Ronin points up—there’s a huge opening, and they can see the full moon rising. “That’s our exit. Meet me back here when you get the slugs.”

 

Ronin’s shucking off his armor, and MK demands, “What, you’re not coming with us?”

 

“You’ve got the easy part,” he says with a smile (it looks so foreign on him she stares), “and I’ve got the fun part.”

 

Nod looks around. “How are we going to find them?”

 

“Follow the slime,” Ronin points out a Boggan who slips, and then curses in a guttural language. “Come on, quickly.”

 

Ronin jumps down onto a center bridge. “Hey, look, it’s a Leaf-Man,” and he sounds so happy MK stares. “Let’s make this simple—I run, and you try to catch me.”

 

The Boggans decide playing tag is awesome, and they follow. Once the guards in front of the hallway with slime drop down to follow Ronin, Nod nods, and they jump for it.

 

It does actually get easier.

 

They duck inside the hallway, in time for a whole crowd of Boggans to come rushing towards them. MK gulps, but Nod snags her wrist, holding her in place. The Boggans rush around them, yelling incoherent things. “They’re not that smart,” Nod breathes to her, waiting for the last straggler to pass before letting go of her. “As long as they think we look like them, they’re not going to attack us.”

 

“I swear, once I get big again, I’m so coming back here with a can of bug spray. The hardcore stuff that kills ticks,” she tells him.

 

He laughs.

 

She jerks the skull up, trying to get some fresh air. “Mub? Grub?”

 

They enter a huge room, and MK repeats her call, looking around.

 

Across the room, on the floor, is a panel of desiccated wood, and just under, she can make out Mub’s eyes. “MK! We’re here!”

 

She and Nod run across, pushing away the piece of wood. Nod grabs Mub’s eyestalks and hauls him up, and MK makes grabby hands. “Give me the pod.”

 

Mub passes it up, before telling Nod, “Seriously, my dude. You should work on that grip—it’s quite womanly.”

 

MK rolls her eyes. Aannd...Mub is back to being a creepy dudebro.

 

With effort, she hauls up Grub. “C’mon, we gotta go! Before the guards come back!”

 

“Too late,” Mub swallows, as the shadows of a Boggan with a beak and another Boggan that’s bigger play across the wall.

 

“I have a plan,” Grub announces. “Quick, everyone hide in your shells!” He does so, and then sees how they’re all looking at him. “I have a different plan! Mub and I will crawl on the ceiling, and you hold onto our eyestalks!”

 

“Now wait just one moment,” Mub starts, but Nod and MK are already tossing them up, where their slime helps them hold onto the jagged wood of the ceiling (the ceiling isn’t that high. It’s the only reason why it works). MK and Nod jump up, grabbing onto the eyestalks. The pod senses this is what MK has in mind and wraps tendrils around her arms and back, becoming more of a backpack.

 

She mentally blesses the pod.

 

However, Boggans are more competent than Nod gives them credit for, because they look up and see them.

 

“Can’t you go any faster?” Nod demands, hoisting up his feet to keep the big Boggan from spearing him.

 

“It’s kind of hard when you’re pulling on my brain,” Mub says with forced cheer.

 

The Boggan with a long skull on its head groans as it pulls up the bigger Boggan, and they go after Nod.

 

Okay, maybe not so competent. She is right there.

 

The slugs are pulling them forward, and she gasps when she sees that they’re directly above the main network of bridges and walkways. It’s a long way to fall, even if she can jump and stuff now. She can see Ronin and a taller Boggan in some kind of fur cloak fighting (Ronin’s easy to see, the only spot of green in a grey area), and she looks at Nod. “Ronin’s in trouble!” The rest of the Boggans are crowded around them, and she’s afraid.

 

So is the pod, she realizes after a moment.

 

“He can take care of himself,” Nod tells her.

 

Just then, the flying Boggan misjudges the distance and flies up too high, hitting its head on the wood, and falling. The slugs get them to the outer rim of jagged wood just in time, and Nod and MK swing onto it, before helping the slugs. MK turns in time to hear some kind of wordless war cry, and she shivers. The Boggan in the cloak is looking directly at her, and she gets angry when she realizes the cloak is actually a bat.

 

Bats are awesome, you douche.

 

The Boggans come swarming out of nowhere, looking more maggot-y than ever, and Nod’s fighting the ones coming up from his side, but he’s a little busy, and the cloaked Boggan is climbing up towards her. “You’ll find that getting out is much harder than getting in,” he tells her with a grin.

 

The pod’s wrapped tendrils around her arms, and she holds it close. She takes a step back, and the cloaked Boggan clears the ledge, tapping the ground with his staff. Purple-black-green _stuff_ pours from it, and she lunges back to avoid it. “You’re not getting the pod back,” she tells him defiantly as he closes in. She looks around frantically, trying to find something that she can use—

 

The wood creaks under her feet, and she looks down to see the wood bending with the strain of her weight. That works. She looks back up as the Boggan comes closer, “If you want it so bad, I’ll just take you both. My Dark Prince could use a snack.”

 

She glares. How do heroes do the whole ‘wisetalking’ thing? She takes one step back, off the strained wood. Got it. “You know, your home _so_ doesn’t meet OSHA standards,” she tells him, stomping down on the strained wood with everything she has.

 

It splinters, and the Boggan loses his balance, and then Ronin comes jumping out of the ether, knotting his hands around the Boggan’s neck. “Run!” he orders her, falling back down.

 

The cloaked Boggan rips himself out of Ronin’s grasp, only to go falling down into the heart of the dead tree. Ronin catches himself, landing on a walkway not too far down. “Ronin!” she calls, and looks over at Nod, who’s not too far away. “We have to help Ronin!”

 

Nod jumps over to her, looking down. “ _Ronin!_ ” he shouts. “C’mon!”

 

“Take the pod back to Moonhaven,” Ronin shouts back. “You’ve got to save it!”

 

“We’re not leaving without you!” MK and Nod yell in unison.

 

“Now you’re starting to sound like a Leaf-Man,” Ronin tells them before disappearing under the Boggans.

 

Nod shouts once more, but the Boggans are coming, so he drags MK up and then pushes the slugs after her—MK kicks a Boggan in the face that tries to punch him—and he whistles, and his sparrow comes flying through, and they mount and they’re off.

 

MK sees Ronin’s Jewelwing as they pass. He’s faithful, waiting for Ronin, but he watches them go with a sad cheep.

 

“Will he get out?” she asks Nod.

 

Nod’s face has become closed and cold. “I don’t know,” he says finally.

 

Nod lost his dad to Wrathwood, she reminds herself. Now he’s lost another. She places a hand carefully on his shoulder, but he doesn’t react, so she places it around his waist again.

 

The wasteland of Wrathwood slowly fades back into lush green, and as they clear up a hill, she can see a bright glow emanating from the center of the forest, and then more hummingbirds circle around them.

 

The redhead from before is leading them, and he directs his bird to be on level with Nod’s. “We’ve been waiting for you for hours,” he takes in MK, dirty and bruised (when did that happen?), and the slugs, tucked into each other. “Where’s Ronin?”

 

MK presses her lips together, and Nod answers, “He...gave us a head start.”

 

The redhead’s face creases slightly, but then Nod tells him, “The Boggans aren’t far behind.”

 

The redhead nods, and he signals the fighters around them as they approach what _has_ to be Moonhaven, and MK forgets about everything for a moment, because Moonhaven is gorgeous, all lights and running water and possibly-manmade-structure in the center? It’s just...beyond description. No wonder her dad’s been trying to find this place for so long.

 

As they land, Nim comes rushing out of the main room. “You guys made it! I knew you would.”

 

She smiles up at him as he places a hand on her shoulder. “The scrolls tell you that?” she asks as he steers her in.

 

“Some things you just know,” he replies.

 

The Leaf-Men and the people of the forest have gathered around the center, where lilies shoot up and shine in the rich moonlight. They surround a stone dish that’s up to MK’s hip, and it’s filled with water. MK gives the pod to Nim, who places it in the pool. “Okay, moonlight comes in here, moves to here, the pod is here, and boom! It blooms!” From the placement of the moonlight, it won’t be long, and she steps back.

 

Nod steadies her, but he doesn’t let go of her elbow, and she doesn’t want to shake him off. It feels...nice. “So, when the pod blooms, what happens to you?”

 

“I think I go home,” she says, and he lets go of her as she puts her hands in her pockets, playing with the outside of her phone case.

 

“Oh,” Nod says, his face falling. “Um, well...”

 

“Yeah?” she asks, stepping in a little.

 

Nod is blushing, and he is _adorable_. He looks like he’s going to kiss her, and she thinks she might let him, but then he takes a step back and offers his hand. “It’s been...good.”

 

Disappointed, she takes it. “Yeah, it has.” Nod squeezes her hand, maybe unconsciously, but the moonlight starts to hit the pool, and they turn to watch it.

 

The pod’s tendrils start to reach for the moonlight, and it feels so happy that MK almost weeps, because she can’t recall when she was that happy. The pod’s petals start to open, and everyone is smiling, and she wonders if there was a way she could balance real world life with the Leaf-Men. She’s seen such beauty, and she’s not sure if she wants to leave it.

 

Just when it looks like the pod is going to open, the light changes and the pod straightens, and MK feels pain all the way down to her toes. Grub perches on the lip of the dish and looks up, and he’s grim when he turns back to them all. “Mandrake’s bats!”

 

Silver-haired bats are early fliers. This is way too late for them, and she feels a sense of rising anger on their behalf. Mandrake—that cloaked Boggan, she thinks—has gone too far, for too long. She looks at the pod, and then at Nim. The Leaf-Men have all fled to armor up, and the civilian people have scrambled away, but she’s still here. The redhead stops and looks at her, and then calls, “Arya!”

 

A woman Leaf-Man detaches from the corps, tucking her helmet under her arm. “Yes, Commander?”

 

“Stay with her,” the redhead instructs.

 

“Yes sir,” Arya responds, approaching MK.

 

“What are we going to do?” MK asks Nim, panicking. “I’ve got to do something!”

 

“That would not be a good idea,” Arya says, cutting off Nim. “You don’t have the training.”

 

“I can’t just sit here!” she looks at the pod. Darkness is starting to curl around the petals, and she’s close to hyperventilating with panic.

 

“I didn’t say that,” Nim says, smiling at Arya.

 

“Well then I’m going!”

 

“You can’t,” Nim and Arya remind her.

 

“Well, what _can_ I do?”

 

“The queen chose you for a reason,” Nim says patiently. “What can you do that we can’t?

 

“I don’t know, I’m no one, I just got caught up in this--,” MK freezes, looking down at the phone in her pocket. “Wait. I’ve got something you guys don’t have.”

 

Arya looks less than impressed. “And that would be...?”

 

MK pulls her phone from her pocket—the phone that has remained in one piece, despite everything it’s been through. She scans through her library, and there’s the silver bat congregation call. It’s mating season, isn’t it? The calls—she can lead the bats away! “I’ve got _this_ ,” she says breathlessly. “Do you have something to amplify sound?”

 

From her belt, Arya detaches a horn. “Will this do? General Ronin insists we carry these at all times.”

 

MK presses play on her iPhone, fitting the sound through the mouth of the horn. Bat sounds— _silver-haired_ bat sounds-- blare through the hall, and MK cuts it off. “Yeah, it will.”

 

“Is that magic?” Arya looks fascinated.

 

“In a way,” MK answers. She looks up at Nim. “I’ll be back.”

 

“Hurry,” he warns her as Arya whistles for a bird. “Fly to the east. The owls are roosting there for the night.”

 

“The owls?”

 

“They’ll hunt Mandrake’s bats,” Arya says grimly, offering MK the reins. “The King of the Forest always makes sure his creatures are near on the Sabbats, and this is one of our most important. The owls will fight for us if you lead the bats to them.”

 

MK swallows. Understanding of what is going to happen makes her stomach clench. “Is there a way to get the bats out from under Mandrake’s thrall?”

 

“Thrall only goes so far,” Arya tells her, helping her onto the bird and cinching the straps tight. “Survival instinct will fight it, but they need to feel threatened. Some will die, but the rest should wake up and realize they want to live.”

 

MK breathes in and out. “Okay.”

 

“Hurry! And good luck,” Arya tells her, and MK nudges the hummingbird into flight.

 

She circles Moonhaven once, and turns the volume on her phone all the way up, before heading east. As she passes the first trees, she can see all of the owls—the barred owls, the Great Horned, maybe even a few barn owls—and as she turns to look back, she realizes the bats are following her. There are still bats in front of the moon, but it’s decreasing steadily.

 

She passes the hollow of a tree and yanks the bird to a stop, putting in the iPhone with the horn facing out. She can’t lead the bats away all night, she needs to be with the pod, and this is the next best thing. She can already see the owls taking flight and hunting the bats. She swallows. Part of her case study involved getting a chance to handle some of the bats, and she’d grown attached. Now she’s just enabled the slaughter of their kind.

 

 _It was what was needed to be done_ , her mother’s voice says in her head.

 

Doesn’t make it any easier, though.

 

Carefully, she turns the hummingbird out and around the bats (totally not going to try flying through or under the bats, that will lead to bad things), and she can see the cloud of bats under the moon is slowly dissipating. She feels her cheeks stretch with a grin—she’s helped save the pod! The forest will survive!

 

She perches the hummingbird on a rock and runs back into the citadel, calling, “Nim! Arya! It’s done, the bats are moving—” She stops short to see Nim, Arya, Mub, Grub, and some of the other Leaf-Men lying crumpled on the ground, and she looks up slowly to see Cloaked Boggan— _Mandrake_ —standing over the pod. “Away,” she whispers.

 

“Oh it’s you,” Mandrake says unenthusiastically. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be present for the birth.”

 

MK screws up her courage. “It’s not going to be _your_ birth,” she says spitefully. “The bats are moving. Face it, you’ve lost.”

 

“Not quite,” Mandrake isn’t even looking at her. He raises the tip of his staff—the thing that caused all that blight—and moves it towards the pod.

 

She doesn’t want to know what happens if that staff touches the pod.

 

She’s going to hate herself later for this, but she grabs Arya’s sword (thing is _heavy_ ), and swings it at Mandrake’s head.

 

He ducks, but he turns toward her instead of the pod. “Oh sweetheart, that looks much too big for you,” he coos. “Let me help you.” He jerks the end of the staff—the one with the blight—towards her face, and she pulls the sword up instinctively, and he jerks it out of her hands, whipping the other end of the staff under her ribs. She falls down, gasping, and he decides that’s apparently enough, because he pads back to the pod. The light is starting to clear, but he’s tall enough—and what if he takes the pod?

 

 _I_ really _don’t want to be the Lily Potter to the pod’s Harry,_ she thinks to herself, forcing herself to her feet. She thinks she hears a woman’s laughter, but it’s not her mom’s, and people think all sort of weird things when they’re breathless. Mandrake’s edging closer to the dish, and so she tenses and then jumps over, onto his back (she’ll never be Nod or Ronin, but she can put the years of dance to _some_ use). She knots her hands under his chin, jerking his head back.

 

She doesn’t actually have any combat training. Like none. So it doesn’t surprise her when he casually elbows her in the face, and grabs her free-hanging ankle to swing her into the ground. Her back hits the stone dais, and she groans in pain, and then it turns into a ‘ylp’ when he picks her up by a heavy grip on her throat.

 

“You’re vexing,” he tells her conversationally, bending over her and forcing her already-sore back to bend over the lip of the well. In an attempt to prop herself up, her hand slips into the water and scrapes against the bottom of the dish. “And it’s been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to crush my enemies’ throat with my hand.”

 

“Totally fail—Evil Overlord list,” she chokes out, trying to kick him, but the angle’s wrong. With her left hand, she tries to scratch him, but his skin is tougher than a human’s.

 

She tries to move her right hand out of the dish, but the pod’s tendrils hold it fast.

 

“My dark prince,” Mandrake coos to the pod, which shrinks away from him.

 

“I don’t think it likes you,” MK hears just as her vision starts to go black. Mandrake tosses her aside, but she doesn’t go far, thanks to the pod’s grip on her. Her shoulder bangs into the stone dais, and she winces while she coughs, getting onto her knees. She can hear the sound of battle, but she’s focused on breathing right now. She stands up, still coughing, and the tips of her fingers of her left hand touch the water as she pulls herself up, and the pod grabs onto them too. The light is suddenly much clearer, and she looks up. There are only a couple of bats left, and they’re flying away from the owls.

 

“It’s working,” she gasps out, turning to look at Mandrake and—

 

“ _Ronin!_ ” she says with delight—or rather, rasps with delight. “You made it!”

 

Ronin doesn’t take his eyes off Mandrake, ducking under another blow from that staff, but he replies, “You think I’d miss this?”

 

She smiles, turning to the pod. “Sweetheart, you’ve gotta let me go. You’re not in danger any more,” she tries to soothe it, but the tendrils aren’t budging. She spreads her feet to make the stance more comfortable, but comfort isn’t really working here.

 

“Yes it is,” Mandrake laughs, and she sees that he’s got a foot on Ronin’s chest, with his staff prepared to swing. “What’s that saying you all have? Leaves, something, something trees--very inspiring I’m sure, but the fact is, leaves fall and die _alone_.”

 

“He’s not alone,” MK and Nod shout in unison as Nod jumps down in time to catch the downward swing of the staff with his sword.

 

“Not even him,” Nod jerks his head at Ronin, “or her. Hey, glad to see you’re still around.”

 

“I’d be happier if the pod would let me go,” she says tightly.

 

“Don’t fight it,” Nim advises, standing up slowly as more Leaf-Man jump down, into the citadel. She can see the panic start to dawn on Mandrake’s face, realizing that he’s lost. “Just let it come.”

 

MK makes herself relax as Nim turns to Mandrake. “You haven’t realized what’s going on?” the caterpillar asks him. “You haven’t suspected?”

 

“What’s going on?” MK asks suspiciously.

 

“Can’t fight a queen’s choice,” Nim laughs. He points at the moon. “Watch and learn.”

 

Under the bright moonlight, all of the touches of darkness have faded completely from the pod, and it opens in a blazon of light. Mandrake makes one more last-ditch effort to reach the pod, but Ronin and Nod catch the staff with their crossed swords.

 

“Go away,” MK orders him. “No one wants you here.”

 

Mandrake flies out, over the pond and away from Moonhaven, and she looks down at the open pod in her arms. “Did I do that?” she murmurs.

 

A flash of light erupts from the pod, turning into the gold mist that Tara had turned into. It flits around the circle, circling around Ronin (he closes his eyes with a vulnerability she turns her eyes from—it’s too private), and finally coming back to MK. Tara blooms into being—an appropriate metaphor, she admits to herself—and says, “Thank you, for everything you’ve done.”

 

“I just did what you asked me to do,” she says self-consciously.

 

Tara’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “Take care of them for me,” she says, looking at Ronin, Nod, and the rest of the people. “Can you do that?”

 

MK smiles, meeting the eyes of the queen who’s changed her life so much. “Yeah, I can do that.”

 

“Thank you,” Tara tells her, leaning against her cheek to cheek. To Ronin, who seems to be finally enjoying himself, she says, “There’s that smile,” before leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead. MK’s world changes in a blaze of light, and when she blinks it away, she sees she herself has changed. Her hair ripples lightly in the new wind, and her sensible dark leggings, skirt, boots, and hoodie have been turned into a dress. The top is deep green, with tight sleeves and it sparkles gold where the moonlight hits it. The neckline is straight across her chest, but scoops up to her collarbones and down her arms. The skirt is full and white, with touches of green and yellow to it.

 

She looks up at Nim in shock, who smiles and bows to her. “Your Majesty.”

 

She looks around the citadel in a panic, but everyone— _everyone_ —is falling to his or her knees. She shifts to look at Ronin and Nod, who are bowing but they’re smiling, and Ronin’s smile is sweet, just like Tara thinks it is.

 

 _I was supposed to go home_ , she thinks in a panic.

 

Nim takes her arm and swivels her around, until she’s between Ronin and Nod. “All hail Queen Mary Katherine!”

 

_How did he find out what my full name is?_

 

“All hail!” Everyone cheers, and Nod leans forward to mutter, “Give it a little bit, smile, and you can be alone soon.”

 

MK smiles automatically, and the people all want to tell her how happy they are, but little by little, they start to stream out as the sun comes up, until it’s just Arya (thank _god_ she’s still alive, apparently Mandrake only wanted to knock them out, not kill them), the redhead, Ronin, Nod, and Nim. MK finally lets her face relax, rubbing at her cheeks as she glares up at Nim. “When did you figure it out?”

 

“When the Oak King let you ride him,” Nim shrugs. “It was in the scrolls.”

 

“The Oak King let you ride him?” Ronin stares.

 

“The only animal we rode was the stag of the Moonhaven herd,” Nod protests.

 

“That’s the Oak King,” Nim explains. “In winter, his brother is the white stag, the Holly King.”

 

“Um, who is the Oak King?”

 

“The King of the Forest,” Arya tells her. “You and the queens before you rule the plants and the insects, without which there would be no forest. The King rules over the animals, and the Oak and Holly Kings share dominance over the course of the year. During spring and summer, the Oak King holds sway. Autumn and winter, the Holly King.” She glares at Nod. “Unlike some, I paid attention in our history classes.”

 

“Do I have to marry the King of the Forest?” MK asks cautiously, ignoring Nod’s, “Hey, I never got that lesson in history.”

 

“No,” Nim assures her, laughing. “It’s two separate roles, and they don’t cross all that often except for the Sabbats.”

 

“Sabbats?” She’s totally not cut out for this. She’ll fail being queen before she’s even had a chance.

 

“Our major holidays,” Ronin clarifies, looking over her. “Winter Solstice, Imbolc, vernal equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lughnasadh, autumnal equinox, and Samhain.”

 

“Aren’t those...witchy holidays?”

 

“Witchy holidays?” Nim asks, looking lost. “They go back throughout our history, and they each represent a step in the life, death, and rebirth cycle of the forest.”

 

“Oh. That makes sense.”

 

The redhead looks at Ronin, who meets his gaze, and then takes a step forward to MK. “Your Majesty, I did not introduce you before. This is Finn, my second-in-command.”

 

“Your Majesty,” Finn bows.

 

“Please—don’t do that,” she says, flustered. “Don’t bow. And don’t call me ‘Your Majesty,’ either. I’m MK.”

 

“That wouldn’t be--,” Ronin sighs. “Yes, MK.”

 

MK sighs too. “I thought I was supposed to be going home,” she mourns.

 

She feels a hand on her shoulder, and looks up to see Nim smiling at her. “The pod chose you, just as the queen chose you. Did you think it was an accident that the only one the pod would touch was you?”

 

“I guess I thought it recognized me as protector or something,” she tells him.

 

“It did,” Ronin says quietly. “But Tara told me once that the day she was chosen, the Oak King revealed himself to her and let her ride him around the forest. If you and Nod had told me that’s where you were, I would have realized it sooner.”

 

“Hey, I ride deer all the time,” Nod protests.

 

“But you don’t ride stags,” Ronin says sharply. “ _I_ taught your father how to ride deer, and the stags never allow themselves to be ridden by our kind.” He turns back to MK, steadying her with a hand on her elbow. She leans into the hold, because her head is spinning. “I didn’t know why the que--Tara chose you, but she did, and there is wisdom to all she did.”

 

“Thanks, I think,” she mutters.

 

“Come, we should show you Moonhaven. Unless you would prefer to rest...”

 

“Rest. Rest sounds good. Yeah.”

 

Ronin nods, offering his arm. It’s such an old school gesture that she takes it, and Finn, Arya, and a clearly-reluctant Nod leave while Ronin directs her.

 

The moment they have some sort of privacy, her throat clenches up, and she stops, breathing hard. “Are you all right?”

 

She looks up at him, trying to push away the tears. “Ronin, I have a _life_ outside all of this, I have my family, and my stepmom would definitely call the cops on my dad if it looks like I’ve gone missing, and--.”

 

“Breathe,” Ronin orders, wavering for a moment and then putting his hand between her shoulder blades. “In and out.”

 

She makes a face at him before complying. As she’s breathing, he says gently, “We’ll take this one day at a time. You’re new, and we’re new--.”

 

“To having a Stomper queen?”

 

“Well, yes,” Ronin admits, “but most of the Jinn have never known another queen besides Tara. Only a few of us even remember Queen Alys, Tara’s predecessor. It will be a learning curve.”

 

“But I can get in touch with my family so they don’t think I’ve been murdered violently?”

 

Ronin looks at her. “I’m sure we can work something out. Come.”

 

He leads her out of the citadel and down the spiral. When they hit the water, the lily pads come together, and Ronin wastes no time in striding onto them, dragging MK a little.

 

She is walking on lily pads. This is actually a thing that is happening to her.

 

Once they get to the opposite side of the pod, he cuts a left, through what is apparently the town surrounding the citadel. “Fabric and sewing are down here,” he tells her, pointing down a field of dogwood blossoms. “The dyers and the brewers are on the edge, thanks to their repugnant scent.”

 

“What do you brew?”

 

“Maple brandy, thistlebeer, sassafras brandy, various berry wines,” Ronin shrugs. “The arbors will likely ask you to visit in the spring, in return for supplying your staff and yourself with the brew of your choice. Tara enjoyed raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry wines. Since you’re new, they’ll offer you a taste of what they offer to discover what you’d like.”

 

“You know, back home, I’m not legal to drink.”

 

Ronin frowns. “What is your legal age to drink?”

 

“21.”

 

“And you are?”

 

“Seventeen.”

 

“Well, you no longer adhere to their law,” Ronin observes. “Down here are the metalworkers. They’re almost all in Leaf-Men employ, since there isn’t much of a need for metalworking beyond what we require. The woodcarvers are the next street over.”

 

“You expect me to remember this?” she demands, following as he takes a turn, passing under a roof of morning glory blooms. One of them, a smaller one, trails over her shoulder, rubbing its petals against her face. She stops to let it, giggling a little.

 

“We’ll make sure you get a map,” Ronin says dryly, pausing to let her cuddle with the morning glory. “You’ll also need to pick out your attendants.”

 

She looks at him. “How do I do _that_?

 

Ronin shrugs. “I do not know. Queen Alys helped Tara with the transition, but...”

 

“I don’t have that. Yeah.” She breathes out deeply, placing the morning glory back where it goes. “This gets easier, right? Because I’m feeling really overwhelmed right now.”

 

“It does get easier,” Ronin confirms.

 

“Good.” She joins him, and he pulls aside a curtain of ivy, gesturing that she should go ahead. Down a flight of roughly-hewn stone steps, she sees a bed. It doesn’t look it’s been touched, and she stops on the bottom step and looks up.

 

“Go to sleep, Your Majesty. You’ll feel better.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” she mutters. “And Ronin?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Don’t call me Your Majesty.”

 

Ronin rolls his eyes. She can see it. “Yes, my lady.”

 

He departs, and MK approaches the bed carefully. It’s far bigger than she needs, and she really doesn’t want to think about what people have done on this bed (look, she saw how Tara and Ronin looked at each other).

 

How does she take this dress off, anyway?

 

Tiredness suddenly rushes in, and she realizes she doesn’t care about the damn dress, she just wants to sleep.

 

So she does, rolling over until her feet are on the mattress, and she curls up onto the duvet (it’s nice and plush and she wants to pet it), closing her eyes.

 

It doesn’t take long for her to sleep, and maybe tomorrow will be easier, too.

 

Yeah. Tomorrow should be better. Hope springs eternal. 


End file.
